Jack Yao, a member of the Communist Party of China, never wanted to be an activist.
After escaping rural poverty and joining Beijing’s middle classes through decades of study and work, he saw himself as the patriotic poster child of the party’s successful regime.
Yet the 43-year-old’s life has changed since she and thousands of others suddenly lost access to their savings in a banking fraud scandal that erupted in April, which focused on a string of rural lenders in Henan and Anhui provinces.
After venting his anger on social media and discussing lobby officials’ opposition to reimbursement of their funds with fellow depositors, he says he found himself at the sight of the government’s high-tech social surveillance machine.
The pushback by Yao and his thousands of fellow bank depositors from across the country comes during a sensitive time for China, with Xi Jinping set to secure a third leadership term at the party congress beginning Sunday, which will be his will ensure his place as the most powerful leader. Mao Zedong.
Unusually prolonged and public discontent, part of a wider erupting of popular anger, has persisted despite security shutdowns, from hostage attacks to COVID lockdown protests. It offers a glimpse into how long some frustrated citizens will take to combat the world’s most powerful security state.
Yao, who works for a government company, said, “I often received more than a dozen phone calls from the police day and night, and they fear they will never save more than 10 million yuan ($1.4) of my life savings.” ten lakh).
“His main message is – don’t bother,” he said. He says he feels he is respected by the state: “When you try to protect your rights, they try to maintain social stability.”
China’s Ministry of Public Security, Henan and Anhui local governments, and police departments in those provinces and Beijing did not respond to requests for comment for this article. The national banking regulator of the rural banks under the scanner and CBIRC also did not respond.
Chinese officials say social stability is the foundation for a prosperous future and dismiss human rights complaints as Western propaganda and interference in internal affairs.
Stories told to Reuters by Yao and 14 other bank depositors, who used social media to discuss and coordinate their money recovery efforts, reveal the scale and reach of China’s high-tech security apparatus.
His agile strategy and pursuit of clear goals also exposed the limitations of the system.
According to depositors, the strategic adaptation included splitting into dozens of smaller WeChat groups that were harder to track, communicating between groups via encrypted apps like Telegram and sharing more sensitive information via phone calls or in person.
“We first divided into a provincial group, and then a city group under a provincial group, and then a smaller group under a city group,” said 39-year-old Hangzhou resident Sarah Wang. Time. “Everyone in my group was around, four to five people.”
Months of turmoil, which had swiftly dispersed at least two initial protests by police at the offices of banking regulators, reached a flashpoint on July 10.
A crowd of about 1,000 people, many waving Chinese flags, rallied outside the central bank’s Zhengzhou branch for several hours, after which violent protests by security personnel broke out in scenes that went viral online.
The next day, China’s banking regulator announced that Henan and Anhui provinces would begin repaying a number of customers on behalf of rural banks, and that most depositors were reimbursed. On the same day, police said they had arrested suspects linked to a criminal gang controlling banks that had created fake loans to transfer money illegally.
“In the case of depositors, they managed to mobilize collectively, which is incredible given the level of surveillance on WeChat and other apps,” said Diana Fu, an associate professor of political science at the University of Toronto who studies China. .
“Their ability to coordinate shows that regardless of censorship surveillance and other pre-emptive measures, when there are enough citizen complaints – especially if they are economic in nature – they express their anger through collective action. will do.”
WeChat developer Tencent did not respond to a request for comment.
code red code red
Chinese state media outlet Global Times reported in mid-August, citing a CBIRC official, that the bank scam involved about 30 billion yuan ($4.2 billion) and 600,000 depositors. Reuters could not independently confirm the figures.
The first signs of trouble emerged on April 18 when four rural banks in Henan and one in Anhui informed depositors, including Yao, that online and mobile banking services had been suspended due to system maintenance.
Such operations usually take place at night and last only a few hours. So after a few days, many depositors went online and started forming chat groups to share their concerns.
Yao said he called his bank several times but people over the phone told him they didn’t know when the problem would be resolved.
He said that on April 24 he went to Zhengzhou to join dozens of others seeking answers from the Henan regional branch of the CBIRC (Chinese Banking and Insurance Regulatory Commission). There the officers told them that the police had started investigating their complaints and they should wait.
By early May, Yao still hadn’t heard anything.
Depositors interviewed by Reuters said they began congregating in large chat groups and livestreams on WeChat and other social media apps, where they agreed to a protest designed to pressure officials to protect their savings.
Depositors said there were dozens of such groups, each containing hundreds of people, while livestreams sometimes accumulated in the thousands.
Although the police always seemed to be one step ahead of them.
On 12 May, at the CBIRC’s head office in Beijing, Yao said that a few dozen depositors gathered to demand answers, but that security personnel had already assembled. Yao said the police took him to a nearby station and released him only after he signed a pledge not to cause more trouble.
The six depositors said that on May 23, security personnel in Zhengzhou surrounded hundreds of marching depositors for several kilometers and dispersed them before reaching their intended destination.
Yao said, “Every time we arrived for the rally, a large number of security and police were already waiting. WeChat is fully visible to the authorities.”
The next planned protest in Zhengzhou presented clear evidence of official forethought.
On June 11, a day before the scheduled demonstrations, authorities began changing the health codes of hundreds of people to red on their COVID-19 tracking mobile phone app, depositors said, making it difficult for them to travel or enter buildings. It got difficult. Epidemic Policy.
Dozens of depositors posted screenshots, evidence and videos online of what happened. The content was shared millions of times before it was censored, inciting widespread anger, even from some state media.
On June 23, anti-corruption officials announced that they had punished five officials in Zhengzhou for deliberately turning 1,317 citizens’ health codes red.
Against whom do you get angry?
By this point, according to many depositors, it was clear that the authorities were aware of their every move by monitoring their large WeChat groups.
Many decided to adapt their strategy ahead of the next planned demonstration – the Flashpoint 10 July protest in Zhengzhou – which involved breaking up small online groups and using virtual private networks, or VPNs, to breach China’s “Great Firewall”. includes doing.
Jiangsu province resident Fiona Xu, who lost access to about 8 million yuan in deposits, said many depositors felt they had no choice but to go “on the wall”.
“It was easy for the police to monitor our WeChat group. When we set a date in the group, the police already stopped us,” he said.
According to the depositors, the original groups were still open, but were mainly used for members to share news and support each other, with no sensitive information.
“Usually they are groups to keep warm,” Wang said, adding that members still had to do “homework” such as continuing to call banks, police and regulators, as well as posting on social media.
The date of the new Zhengzhou demonstration was largely kept secret, more than a dozen depositors told Reuters. Until the last minute, many people only knew that they would have to get up at 4am in Zhengzhou on July 10th for further instructions.
Around 1,000 people gathered outside the local central bank branch early in the morning. A tall banner in English read: “Against corruption and violence of the Henan government.” The protesters raised the slogan: “Henan Bank, give us our deposits back.”
The crowd eventually engulfed and the police and unknown men were mostly wearing white shirts. According to online footage of the depositors and clashes, security personnel dragged the depositors into nearby buses at around 11 am, which was shared millions of times before the video and related hashtags were censored.
Wang said his jawbone was fractured when a plainclothes security guard hit him with his elbow.
The next day, the CBIRC announced that Henan and Anhui would begin making payments on behalf of rural banks to customers with deposits of up to 50,000 yuan. The regulator later regularly extended the wage increase limit until August 30, when the amount due for reimbursement reached 500,000 yuan – the state-guaranteed limit on deposits.
However Yao, like hundreds of others with large deposits, has yet to be refunded. He wants to keep fighting but says he doesn’t know what else he can do.
Feeling disillusioned, he now wants to leave the Communist Party.
“I do not know against whom to rebel. Who am I tormented by? There is no specific person.”
Zhiwu Chen, a professor of finance at the University of Hong Kong, said both state officials seeking social stability and consumer activists seeking redress have achieved a measure of success.
“Both sides have probably concluded that they won this battle,” he said, adding that he expects more financial scandals and social discontent in the coming years as China’s economy slows.
“This game will continue.”
(This story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)